Doctrinal Destruction and Chevron's Extinction Debt

Chevron, the landmark Supreme Court case urging judicial deference to reasonable agency interpretations of vague or ambiguous statutes, has dominated federal administrative law since 1984. The sudden rise of the major questions doctrine, however, has destroyed Chevron’s jurisprudential habitat. Conservation biology suggests that habitat destruction is most devastating to dominant species, often imposing a biological “debt” that must be repaid through extinction. As with biology, so with law: “Major questions” having displaced agency deference, Chevron is doomed.